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Where in Texas are Indigenous Groups?

This map image depicts a small image of the lower forty-eight states of the United States and a large image of Texas with Indian lands managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in red. Most of 55.7 million acres of Indian lands managed by the BIA nationwide are located in the western United States. Despite large aboriginal populations, little land in Alaska and Hawaii is administered by the BIA. Despite its western leanings Texas has almost no reservation land and only three resident tribal groups, the Tiguas at Yseta Del Sur Pueblo in the El Paso area, the Texas Band of Kickapoos near Eagle Pass in south Texas, and the Alabama-Coushatta tribes in Polk County in east Texas, all of whom came to Texas well after European settlement. Many other tribes inhabited Texas in the past including the fiercely independent and nomadic Comanches who were finally forced onto reservation lands in Oklahoma after 100 years of warfare against Spanish, U.S. and Texas encroachments. Back You are currently viewing a legacy feature of the Texas Politics Project website. Please visit the expanded Texas Politics Project website to learn more about our updated webtext and to find additional educational resources.

Unlike most western states, Texas today has almost no Indian lands, the result of systematic warfare by Texas and the United States against indigenious groups in the nineteenth century that decimated tribes or drove them onto reservations in other states.

While the limited number and size of Indian reservations in Texas today reveal much about relations between European-descended settlers and Indians at the turn of the 19th century, these reservations account for only a small percentage of the native Americans in the state. Though only about 2,624 people have formally enrolled as members of Texas tribes, the 2000 census counted 118,362 people in Texas who identified themselves as exclusively American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN).

 

Source: For a thorough summary of Texas tribes today see: "Texas." Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, http://www.eda.gov/ImageCache/EDAPublic/documents/pdfdocs/39texas_2epdf/v1/39texas.pdf (July 6, 2006).

Detailed census information is available from the Bureau of the Census, http://factfinder.census.gov/home/aian/index.html (July 6, 2006).

See the Handbook of Texas Online for detailed historical information on the Alabama-Coushatta Tribes of Texas, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/AA/bma19.html (July 6, 2006); the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/KK/bmk9.html (July 6, 2006); the Tiguas at Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo of Texas, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/TT/bmt45.html (July 6, 2006). See also the entries in the Handbook on Indians, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/II/bzi4.html (July 7, 2006) and on the Comanche Indians, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/CC/bmc72.html (July 7, 2006).

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